Bitcoin Forum

I've had my money stolen from Poloniex. Contacted poloniex- they said they can't do anything.
At this point I know there's no way to get it back, but I just want to report it somewhere within the legal system.
Can I report it to FBI or the local Police?
Any other places/people to report to?

I really doubt the local police will be able or willing to do anything about "someone's strange internet points" getting stolen though filing a report won't hurt. Filing one to the FBI won't hurt either although the most that'll do is simply add another record to the already massive database of similar records in case they bust someone in an unrelated matter. Take this advice (and my lack of confidence in the authorities when it comes to matters related to the Internet) with a grain of salt though since I only have a limited understanding of the US's legal system, without any actual first hand experience.

If you have any identifiable marks on the thief (Bitcoin address(es), website username(s) tied to said address(es), etc.), feel free to create a detailed thread on the Scam Accusations board about the thief.

Start off by contacting your local authorities. They may have a cybercrime division that they can hand your case directly to, if not, they will refer your case to the proper agency. You want to generate a police report; you can claim the theft as a capital loss if you don't get your money returned. But bitcoin is no longer new. Police actually have ways to research intrusions, and the blockchain isn't so mysterious to law enforcement anymore. They will ask Polo for evidence, so if it was an inside job, it may come to light.

I'm sorry for your loss. And Polo is having a lot of poor customer experiences right now, it seems.

Try to see if you can somehow trace and track where the coins are going. Maybe try getting the IP address from poloniex (though the thief can still mask his IP)? One information might lead you to another which in turn might help you catch the thief.
You can file a report, but i don't think the authorities might be able to do/help much. But provide them with as much information as you can.

The only possible way to track your coins is with the help of poloniex,first and foremost how did your account got compromised,hope you have not activated 2fa,which was a bad idea if you are storing your coins and if you want to withdraw your coins they will ask to verify your email before withdrawing your coins,i am not sure how your mail ID was also compromised and for poloniex to hand over the IP address you need to file an official compliant through the legal system and forward it to them and they might provide you the details about how your coins are moved out and to which address.

It is horrible when this happens and right now there is no central body that actively tackles these issues I don't think anyway.  All we can do is make sure we have 2fa on and try not to keep too much on these exchanges.

I would suggest working with Poloniex to gather as much information as you can so you have something to hand over when reporting it, there may be some kind of cybercrime unit in your juristiction, sorry for your loss but I fear it will be very difficult to get your funds back.

There are a lot of people having the same issue I have seen over the last few weeks.

That is something you cannot do anything about even if you get to trace it and then taint the coin there is not much thing that can do because of the fact that there are several mixing services on the web that can neutralize that. This is one disadvantage we have to live with. I have fallen victim before that eventually I had to let go. But I still blame poloniex for not accepting responsibility which is something they really should be called out for.

1.
exchanges need to stop having private keys as hot wallets.
2.
exchanges need to do better security in regards to withdrawal requests
3.
if the funds are on exchanges privkeys then exchanges need to take some accountability of funds
4.
can they show enough data to prove it was not an inside job done by poloniex employee's
5.
they should provide you with logs/data/information
--eg
   how many login attempts were made on your account during the session the funds were lost
   was any 2FA requests made
   what was the IP of user of the session
   was the login attempt out of the ordinary EG real owner can be geolocated but thief was using proxies

if an exchange cannot provide this info then the exchange does not care about security, to even find ways to improve the system for general customers even if they may fail individual customers now and again.
smart businesses log everything and use scenarios of theft as a time to re-assess their own security, so having data available is not only handy for victims but for their business generally

Even forex brokers are from different countries and independent, they are binding to obey some community like Forexarmy. They cannot ignore complaints against them for no proper reasons.
I wish bitcoin related service providers to make a consortium where disputes to be handled on higher priority. We do see every where lazy customer care responses related complaints with almost 90% of bitcoin based services.

Service providers will not make any such system themselves but we the community may form a consensus by which we may make them to abide some set of customer care related protocols. If we start using ONLY such service providers who are part of that consensus then it may get big success.

Perhaps we can suggest it here? It's gonna make things a bit easier when it happens to us too.

I don't really think the FBI or police is going to accept your case report about stolen Cryptocurrency from Poloniex, it is very difficult to prove to the authorities that your funds are stolen and especially it is Cryptocurrency instead of fiat money. Hiring a lawyer would cost you a lot of legal fees and I believe it would take a long time for the court to determine the outcome too, so if the amount stolen is not huge, maybe it would be better to let it go if Poloniex is not going to help you recover the funds back.

Make a official complaint with your local police authorities, if they have a cyber crime division, the better. Trace the country from where the website operates. Google out law enforcing authorities of that country and lodge complaint in as many places as possible.

Are you remember that the status of Bitcoin in every country was vague? There is not another place to report your case or stolen amount. That's crypto, even the exchange site was not able to protect or resolve your case. The cryptos were in a grey area, and that will be useless to report your situations in the legal constitution such as the police or FBI. But, can you try to trace the thief and find the thief's real ID? And make a pressure to send back your number.

It would be not easy to find who stole your money in poloniex i think even FBI or so can't be find those who stole your money..
I think much better you do is to be safe in the future..
And always use 2fa security for safety because poloniex also i am experience someone logging in to my account that is why i use the 2fa method when logging in and now no report who someone login to my account..

in order to let those authorities have a better range of hints cracking where the stolen cryptocurrencies to, i would recommend to provide relevant address, some of the wallets are associated to the same people or group.

I feel alas upon the loss of your capital ! Infact, no one can help you getting back your money in such matter. If you take legal action against this case, there is no surety they can find hacker , but if you know the BTC address where your coins have been sent, you can optimistically search his address over forums to know his profile if the same address is binded somewhere.

Thats worst impression by poloniex. I am not sure whether any local authority can do into your matter. It is internet based and the most important thing is its decentralised  and no one regulates it, so cyber cell might not be able take the case in. What do you guys think?

Do you have any details that could point to an identify of the thief - real or virtual identity? If so, you could start a thread in the Reputation or Scam Accusation boards of this forum. Getting someone ostracized from the community does have its benefits.

Aside from that, you should share your story so others can protect themselves. Were you careless with your account? Are you putting the blame solely on Poloniex on for this one?

If it is found that security was this LAX, then I feel that the exchange would at least be civilly liable for gross negligence. If they have poor record keeping, or refuse to comply with a request for evidence, either they suck so badly they probably shouldn't be doing this, or they are facilitating inside jobs.

I feel like they might be fractional deserving, or have a rogue employee. There have been a lot of Polo hacks all of a sudden, and it wasn't something I saw a lot before. Withdrawal issues as well, I had a friend that only got two of the three ETH he withdrew, according to him. Don't know how it resolved for him, I think it's still in progress :(

How you get your money stolen from poloniex? Did someone actually logged into your account or your balance just got disappear without you or someone accessing your account?

If someone have hacked your account and cashed out your bitcoins than polo can't help you but if your case is second one than you can open scam accusations against polo with all proofs & details you have.

No there are no ways to get back coins even the poloniex its self, there are no legal system to fix this problem
because actually there are no rules on bitcoins include the risk losing bitcoins,
bitcoins is not stocks, gold or currency that there are rule for them, bitcoins is digital goods on the internet
so the risk losing digital coins must be taken by the user's coins.

1. The alternative being...?
2. Ask the OP if he had 2FA enabled (not via email), I'm pretty sure I know the answer... do you?
3. Exchanges are exchanges and not a dispute resolution service for a private party accusing another of theft. As per the general topic of this thread, get the relevant authorities involved, but if they do nothing, then the exchange shouldn't either.

Since bitcoin is decentralized, as of now there is no governing body who decides about lost bitcoin, forgotten wallet and private keys,sent to wrong address or person etc. But if it was lost in Poloniex like in your case, I think you can make a complain ir open scam accusations.

But as an advise, keep always your password secure, your email  etc.

To track bitcoins is impossible on internet, that’s what makes them so efficient and attractive. So if you want to catch the person who stole your coins than you can start by investigating on information you have about the person who stole it, even a little information like even like email address can be very used to catch the thief. You can also put a case on website who was responsible for keeping your coins safe, but that is only possible of no one logged into your account and transferred the coins.

Bitcoin is anonymous and like you said to track bitcoin is impossible but i am thinking why we are still using bitcoin mixers since bitcoin is anonymous people are still keep using mixer?
Just confused but the only thing that i know why we are using mixer is just to be more safe and never be trace by anyone if your transaction never use any mixer i think you can be still trace by someone.

Even if he is able to use the IP locator and determine the location of the individual but now in another country, how does he wants to get the coins back and this is a big issue scammers are exploiting about bitcoin. For me, since the coins cannot be gotten back then the fault is on Poloniex for failing to keep the funds safe and several people have been complaining of coins missing on exchange sites as a result of hacking. The moment the exchange site can be made to be responsible for such loss, they get to do more in terms of security.

These days, I have been stolen. Someone is stolen my coins on 2 excange: Poloniex and Cryptopia. Also and my account on Bittrex is compromited. In all 3 excange a have a 2fa autentification over google autentificator. Criminals has stolen my coin in value about 1850$. His hack my account, excange my coins in bitcoin and withdraw on this wallet: 1AythnxH5BX1J2JTYutEuZQwE98oxrepxk
His access from this ip adress: 195.11.169.135.
No one messages arrived on my google mail.
Most probably they broke into my google drive account where is been pictures of my account info.
But a understand how is it possible to broke Google Autentificator in my phone??????

I've had my crypto's stole just a week ago from my Coinomi wallet. I searched all over internet for a safe wallet to store my coins. So I got wallet and held my coins there since Oct. 2018. After a few coins were stolen. I asked for Coinomi support for help with a ticket. Why don't they let people know of transaction threw email. I could have stopped it by changing my password. If I would have got info about this. Then other sets of coins came up missing? And still no replies. Sombody added ETH to my wallet and stole every coin I was holding. And coinomi says I got to use my private keys and passwords to send or receive coins which is a lie. I never needed private keys to move anything just my password.  So I learned from my mistakes of holding coins in coinomi wallet. If wallet does not have a 2FA, Then my coins are not safe. But i'd like to report my stolen coins. I been tracking this one hacker that got into my google account threw there mobile IOS. And seen there from Cleveland Ohio. and would like to find them.

Hacker got your private key/seed already. they don't need pasword or 2fa when have your privkey/seed.
There aren't sure hacker exactly at cleveland ohio, hacker have proxy to fake adress they live.

1. Coinomi is the kind of wallet where you have Full control over your private keys. Full control of private keys means full control of your money. They can't do anything to alert you or stop any transactions.

If you are careless with your private keys or (seed phrase) then that means someone who has access to them can restore your account from another device and withdraw anything from your addresses.
So coinomi has nothing to do with your money loss

2. The private keys and seed phrases are just used to recover/restore your account... say if you want to open it up in a new device. The password you set up on your account just helps you keep your wallet locked from any intruder who may have access to your phone. However, if a thief gets access to your private key. He will not need the password to access your funds.

He will just restore your account in another device as thou it were his and withdraw everything.

3. Like i said in point 1, coinomi is a kind of wallet where you have total control of your private keys and funds so it does not have 2FA. If a thief has access to your private keys, 2FA wouldn't stop him from withdrawing.

4. You device is probably infected with a malware that steals private information or you were too careless and gave a hacker access to your private keys. Basing on what you said, it looks like you kept your private keys/mnemonic phrases in your gmail, or google drive or google keep and the hacker was able to access it once he hacked your gmail.

It was your mistake not to enable 2FA on your gmail.

That sounds like a scam service a lot. You've a decent site, but how do I know that you're not going to steal my private data or something that I'd have to tell you in order to use your service.

If Cryptocurrencies are not illegal in your country, you could report to the police but it's almost certain that they would be unable to identify the culprit behind the theft, I remember when Binance was hacked and the best they could do was offer a reward for whoever would provide a lead to identifying the individual behind the hack, the local police would just be able to handle cases that are within their jurisdiction.

It's a scam, recently I saw a comment about that... Awareness regarding that kind of scams has to be increased. There are more and more users who are being scammed once again. Firstly, because of hackers and secondly because of companies that offers fake deals. Do some research, pay attention to the background of such a platforms. If you want to reclaim stolen cryptocurrencies, find the company that deals with this legitimately. Just like Coinfirm, a partner of Binance: http://disruptionbanking.com/binance-partners-coinfirm/. Internet is a place full of traps when it comes to money.

Unfortunately cryptocurrencies are illegal for most countries right now (or they are out of law completely).
You can find justice in service's Support or try to find the thief by yourself.

Exactly, I doubt that the local police will be able to do anything in such cases. Only some services focused on that stuff could help

You should stopped on having that habit on necrobumping some old post. Always try to check the date on when OP do write up this one.
He didnt even revisit this thread to make up some updates and this issue is already 2 years+ ago.So its irrelevant to ask out such thing.


There were cybercrime department on our local police but 99% where they cant do anything about lost crypto cases for sure.

There isn't any unfortunately, but if your country or locality considers bitcoin/cryptocurrency as a form of asset, then it's possible to report it to your cybercrime division and let them handle things from there. I don't even think crypto recovery services would help in this case knowing that another party is already involved and the funds are on another people's property and not in yours.

Consider the funds lost. There isn't anything a wallet recovery service can do here.